AND THE WINNER IS...

HEADLINE
A PREGNANT TEEN CAN STOP
WHAT'S COMING... FRIEND-O!
with Predictions and Explanations for Each Category
(Either Posted or On Their Way)

"Even in the contest between man and steer,
the issue is not certain."
—No Country for Old Men

BEST PICTURE
PROJECTION (1) JUNO (Fox Searchlight) (2) No Country for Old Men (Miramax) (3) Michael Clayton (Warner Brothers) (4) There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage) (5) Atonement (Focus Features)
WHY? Accessibility. I just watched No Country for the fourth time and some things are still unclear, not least of all the meaning of the ending; most Academy members will watch it once, if at all, and probably feel the same way. I understand and respect the point the movie is trying to make, but I also know the Academy likes its Best Pictures to have clear, definable, and above all satisfying messages, and this one does not. It certainly does have the smart-money behind it, having all but swept the critics groups and guilds, but I just don't believe they have as much bearing on the Academy's choices as they once did—the huge upset by Crash over Brokeback proved a precursor sweep is not irreversible and that Academy members vote the way their hearts tell them (not the critics), and this year's poor predictions of the Academy's Best Picture lineup by the guilds (PGA missed Atonement, DGA missed Juno and Atonement, and SAG missed Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, and There Will Be Blood) exposes their memberships' lack of ideological and/or personnel overlap with the Academy's. So, if not No Country, then who? The anti-No Country vote may exceed the pro-No Country, but does any single rival inspire enough passion to take it down? The one with the best shot is the one that couldn't be more different, Juno, not Blood (which appeals to the same core audience and will therefore draw from the same pool of voters), not Clayton (which engenders respect but not excitement), and not Atonement (which fits the old Best Picture model, not the new). Sure, Juno would have to break a few rules—it doesn't have an Editing nomination, whereas No Country and There Will Be Blood do; it doesn't lead the field in nominations, whereas No Country and There Will Be Blood do; and it is a comedy, whereas No Country and There Will Be Blood are not. But the key to 2007 may be that that none of the Best Pic nominees fit the traditional models of what a Best Pic winner is supposed to look like, and so at the end of the day I think voters will break towards the one they simply enjoyed the most. It's not like Juno would be coming out of nowhere either—it has the Ebert/Sarris seal-of-approval; it has earned more than twice what any of its rivals have at the box-office; it did snag an essential Best Director nomination; and, at an unusually dark time for our country when our people are forced to confront violence and serious issues everyday, it offers an escape and a reason to hope. (Hey, it's working for Obama!) Even though the rest of the world is screaming "No Country!"—and might well be right—it just doesn't ring true to me. I've been on board with Juno since it was conceived in Toronto, I've watched it get bigger over nine viewings and a full awards season since, and I'm not about to abort it a week before its due to deliver.

BEST DIRECTOR
PROJECTION (1) ETHAN COEN, JOEL COEN (No Country for Old Men) (2) Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) (3) Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) (4) Jason Reitman (Juno) (5) Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton)
WHY? Opportunity. Directors have never been as widely known and appreciated as they are today. This means that when some of the best do awards-worthy work, the media is sure to remind us whether or not they have previously received their due from the Academy. In some cases, voters are guilt-tripped into righting old wrongs (as was the case with Martin Scorsese last year); in other cases, voters face pressure not to make up for past snubs as much as to seize a passable opportunity to make a great filmmaker an Oscar winner so they don't have to worry about coming back to them on a less deserving occasion in the future. The latter is the category into which the brothers Coen fall—two of the most popular and respected auteurs of their time, they do not typically put out Oscar bait, and now that they have their supporters believe it is time to act. Their shyness and general aversion to awards campaigning has not kept them from winning this year's WGA, DGA, or PGA honors, and it should not keep them from locking up the Oscar, either, regardless of the outcome of the Best Picture race, especially considering everyone else in the race is a first-time nominee. That being said, I have gauged surprisingly strong support for artist-director Schnabel, despite the fact that his film was snubbed for Best Pic, so look out for him. Anderson has his own fiercely loyal backers, but is probably a bit too young to threaten. Reitman is here on only his second time out and will probably have to put in a bit more time. And rookie Gilroy is still best known as a writer, not a director, which hurts him.

BEST ACTOR
PROJECTION (1) DANIEL DAY-LEWIS (There Will Be Blood) (2) George Clooney (Michael Clayton) (3) Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd) (4) Tommy Lee Jones (In the Valley of Elah) (5) Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)
WHY? Reverence.I can't think of any recent actor who accrued a greater sense of mystique or legend at a younger age than Day-Lewis. Even his fellow nominees are amazed by his ability to create from within himself a total stranger, and it is this sense of awe that puts him on another plane than the competition. Clooney's movie and performance are more endearing, which gives him some hope, and Depp has never won before, which gives him a glimmer, too. but if Day-Lewis' performance and film did not alone seal the deal for him then his classy speeches and unprecedented willingness to play the game this awards season probably did.

BEST ACTRESS
PROJECTION (1) JULIE CHRISTIE (Away from Her) (2) Ellen Page (Juno) (3) Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose) (4) Laura Linney (The Savages) (5) Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age)
WHY? Familiarity. In the race of the night, I suspect most voters will eventually break towards the 'safe' option, beloved past winner and sentimental favorite Christie, over relative newcomers Cotillard or Page. The odd thing is that Page was much more widely-seen and Cotillard was much better, and both were in their movies much more (Christie disappears for about half of hers), but voters have seen or read about Christie winning precursor after precursor, and even if they didn't see her movie they will feel much more comfortable checking off her name than a promising youngster or a foreign stranger. (The Adapted Screenplay nod for Away from Her proves that a surprisingly high number of voters did see and like the movie, not just Christie.) The general sentiment is that the younger contenders—Page is only 20 and Cotillard only 32—will have other chances, whereas this may be the last go-around for Christie, who is 66 and only works once a decade or so. But this is no done-deal. Cotillard has the momentum down the stretch, having overcome the limited audience of a subtitled-film to win at BAFTA over Christie. Page, meanwhile, may ride some coattails of Juno's widespread support. The real wild-card scenario that nobody has dared to discuss is a true three-way divide paving the way for respected vet Linney, who has a very loyal fan base and has never won.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
PROJECTION (1) JAVIER BARDEM (No Country for Old Men) (2) Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) (3) Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild) (4) Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's War) (5) Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
PROJECTION (1) RUBY DEE (American Gangster) (2) Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) (3) Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There) (4) Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) (5) Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
PROJECTION (1) ETHAN COEN, JOEL COEN (No Country for Old Men) (2) Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) (3) Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) (4) Sarah Polley (Away from Her) (5) Christopher Hampton (Atonement)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
PROJECTION (1) DIABLO CODY (Juno) (2) Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) (3) Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava (Ratatouille) (4) Nancy Oliver (Lars and the Real Girl) (5) Tamara Jenkins (The Savages)

BEST FOREIGN FILM
PROJECTION (1) THE COUNTERFEITTERS (Austria) (2) 12 (Russia) (3) Katyn (Poland) (4) Beaufort (Israel) (5) Mongol (Kazakhstan)

BEST ANIMATED FILM (FEATURE)
PROJECTION (1) RATATOUILLE (Disney) (2) Persepolis (Sony Pictures Classics) (3) Surf's Up (Columbia)

BEST ANIMATED FILM (SHORT)
PROJECTION (1) PETER AND THE WOLF (2) Madame Tutli-Putli (3) Meme les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (4) My Love (5) I Met the Walrus

BEST LIVE ACTION FILM (SHORT)
PROJECTION (1) LE MOZART DES PICKPOCKETS (2) Tanghi Argentini (3) At Night (4) The Tonto Woman (5) Il Supplente

BEST DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
PROJECTION (1) SICKO (The Weinstein Company) (2) No End in Sight (Magnolia) (3) Taxi to the Darkside (THINKFilm) (4) War/Dance (THINKFilm) (5) Operation Homecoming (Documentary Group)

BEST DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
PROJECTION (1) FREEHELD (2) La Corona (3) Salim Baba (4) Sari's Mother

BEST ART DIRECTION
PROJECTION (1) ATONEMENT (Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer) (2) There Will Be Blood (Jack Fish, Jim Erickson) (3) Sweeney Todd (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo) (4) The Golden Compass (Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock) (5) American Gangster (Documentary Group)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
PROJECTION (1) NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Roger Deakins) (2) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Janusz Kaminski) (3) There Will Be Blood (Robert Elswit) (4) Atonement (Seamus McGarvey) (5) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Roger Deakins)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
PROJECTION (1) ATONEMENT (Jacqueline Durran) (2) Sweeney Todd (Colleen Atwood) (3) Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Elizabeth Byrne) (4) La Vie En Rose (Marit Allen) (5) Across the Universe (Albert Wolsky)

BEST FILM EDITING
PROJECTION (1) NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen as Roderick Jaynes) (2) There Will Be Blood (Dylan Tichenor) (3) The Bourne Ultimatum (Christopher Rouse) (4) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Juliette Welfling) (5) Into the Wild (Jay Cassidy)

BEST MAKEUP
PROJECTION (1) LA VIE EN ROSE (Jan Archibald, Didier Lavergne) (2) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Ve Neill, Martin Samuel) (3) Norbit (Rick Baker, Kazuhiro Tsuji)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
PROJECTION (1) RATATOUILLE (Michael Giacchino) (2) Atonement (Dario Marianelli) (3) The Kite Runner (Alberto Iglesias) (4) Michael Clayton (James Newton Howard) (5) 3:10 to Yuma (Marco Beltrami)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
PROJECTION (1) "FALLING SLOWLY" (Once) (2) "That's How You Know" (Enchanted) (3) "Happy Working Song" (Enchanted) (4) "So Close" (Enchanted) (5) "Raise It Up" (August Rush)

BEST SOUND EDITING
PROJECTION (1) TRANSFORMERS (Mike Hopkins, Ethan Van der Ryn) (2) No Country for Old Men (Skip Lievsay) (3) There Will Be Blood (Christopher Scarabosio, Matthew Wood) (4) Ratatouille (Mike Silvers, Randy Thom) (5) The Bourne Ultimatum (Per Hallberg, Karen Baker Landers)

BEST SOUND MIXING
PROJECTION (1) TRANSFORMERS (Peter J. Devlin, Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell) (2) No Country for Old Men (Craig Berkey, Peter Kurland, Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff) (3) Ratatouille (Doc Kane, Michael Semanick, Randy Thom) (4) The Bourne Ultimatum (Kirk Francis, Scott Millan, David Parker) (5) 3:10 to Yuma (David Giammarco, Paul Massey, Jim Stuebe)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
PROJECTION (1) TRANSFORMERS (Scott Benza, Russell Earl, John Frazier) (2) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (John Frazier, Charles Gibson, Hal Hickel, John Knoll) (3) The Golden Compass (Michael Fink, Ben Morris, Bill Westenhofer, Trevor Wood)